grammar of irish.pdf - Cryptm.org

50 ETYMOLOGY. [PART II.example, it would be wrong to say b6anaim me" ort)6anainaoiD pmn, both expressions being tautological.9. This rule, in the case of the third personplural, however, is sometimes not observed ;forsuch expressions as mokub pfab and molpait)pi at) — they praise, they will praise — are often metwith, though molaio or molpaib alone wouldanswer. And a like construction (in the thirdplural) is often used when the nominative is aplural noun, both in the present and in the pasttense; as cpiallaib micTThleao, "the sons of Milego ;" map do concabap na bpaoice, "when thedruids saw."10. The emphatic particles may be postfixed toall the persons of verbs, in the same manner asto pronouns and nouns (p. 39) as ; molaun-pe,I praise; molaip-pe, thou praisest. And in allsuch cases, the word p6m (p. 40) may be usedto make the expressionstill more emphatic; asbo cuippinn-po p6in mo leanb a " coolab, I myselfwould put my child to sleep."11. The general tendency of modern languages is to dropsynthetic forms, and to become more analytic. The Englishlanguage, for example, has lost nearly all its inflections, andsupplied their place by prepositions, conjunctions, adverbs,and auxiliary verbs. Following this tendency, the syntheticforms of the Irish verb are falling into disuse in the spokenlanguage and it has been already remarked ;(p. ~o) that thenoun-inflection ib is now seldom used in speaking. But allthese forms are quite common in even the most modern Irishbooks ;and the learner must, therefore, make himself quitefamiliar with theui.II.TENSES.1. In English a regular verb has only twodifferent forms to express tense :— I love, I loved j